I took the opportunity to see the film, Origin, written and directed by Ava DuVernay, a few months ago while still at theaters. I was one of about six other people present. That’s unfortunate because after seeing the feature, I was compelled to go back and read the story that gave birth to the film, Origin. The book entitled, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, by Isabel Wilkerson.
I implore you who are a person of reason and openness to learn from the history of man kind; good and not so good, to read, Caste. I have been engrossed for the last two weeks. Even while driving in the car, I was listening. My kids had no choice but to listen as well. Caste is a book that could be a course in itself for young and old. I believe if we could all learn from this work, and gain a different perspective, we could see how we are interconnected in this world. It’s humanizing, but you have to be willing. This world has to be willing.
Don’t forget to check your local library. All media is available.
Keep reading…here’s an excerpt from the Epilogue.
“As each of us came into consciousness, we learned, based on the random outward manifestation of the combinations of genes that collided at that precise moment of our conception, that because of what we look like, the world had already assigned a place for us.
It was up to each of us to accept or challenge the role we were cast into, to determine for ourselves and to make the world see that what is inside of us —our beliefs and dreams, how we love and express that love, the things that we can actually control—-is more important than the outward traits we had no say in. That we are not what we look like but what we do with what we have, what we make of what we are given, how we treat others and our planet.
Human beings across time and continents are more alike than they are different. The central question about human behavior is not why do those people do this or act in that way, now or in ages past, but what is it that human beings do when faced with a given circumstance?
None of us chose the circumstances of our birth. We had nothing to do with having been born into privilege or under stigma. We have everything to do with our God-given talents and how we treat others in our species from this day forward.
We are not personally responsible for what people who look like us did centuries ago. But we are responsible for what good or ill we do to people alive with us today. We are, each of us, responsible for every decision we make that hurts or harms another human being. We are responsible for recognizing that what happened in previous generations at the hands of or to people who look like us set the stage for the world we now live in and that what has gone before us grants us advantages or burdens though no effort or fault of our own, gains or defies that others who do not look like us often do not share.
We are responsible for our own ignorance or, with time and openhearted enlightenment, our own wisdom. We are responsible for ourselves and our own deeds or misdeeds in our time and in our own space and will be judged accordingly by succeeding generations.”
Isabell goes on in her final thoughts to describe what a world without caste promises. It is a profound, humanizing vision. But the words at the end has me in a state of self examination. She states, “A world without caste would set everyone free.”
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